California Cop Fired For Retaliation After Facebook Debate Over “A Heist Gone Bad”“I think they targeted me,” said the critical California man who spoke out on Facebook, and whose Christmas present for criticizing his local police department was a $300 lump of coal in the form of an unlawful vehicle fine.
A California cop lost his job this week for his brazen act of censorship.
Stockton Police themselves were criticized for firing 600 shots after the pursuit ended, 10 of which from the police ended the life of a hostage, leading to a lawsuit by the surviving hostage and a 60-plus page rebuke from The Police Foundation which you can read below.
It’s called “A Heist Gone Bad.”
Stockton police justly fired the California cop, who used his ticket book to retaliate against a department critic speaking out about the high-speed chase and shooting incident.
Local resident Motecuzoma Sanchez criticized the department on Facebook over a high-profile bank robbery response, which involved shots fired by fully one out of every four members of the 132 person department.
He also holds a masters degree in public administration.
Sanchez woke up on the day after he celebrated Christmas in 2015, to find a citation for expired registration on his car.
And this week, California cop Aaron Adams was fired for retaliating against the community activist, which local news station CBS13 confirmed.
Adams shouldn’t have sought revenge against Motecuzoma Sanchez.
“My Christmas present was a $300 fine for exercising free speech,” said the community activist Motecuzoma Sanchez in an interview.
Legally, Sanchez was cited under a code which states that cars with expired registration can be ticketed on highways and public parking areas.
But not in a private driveway.
Sanchez’s care was parked with the stickers facing away from the street.
So, someone at the police department would have had to walk onto his property, in order to see the expired stickers on the car, while Sanchez was sleeping.
The ticket was illegal.
So Motecuzoma Sanchez proceeded to file a harassment complaint within the department.
Stockton Police subsequently placed Aaron Adams on paid administrative leave for the retaliatory citation, before he was fired this week.
“They looked up my address, they came to my house just to send me a message in the middle of the night. We can find you any time. No way they just stumbled across my car,” said the infuriated activist Sanchez.
And petitioning the government, or criticizing government is a strongly protected act of free speech under the 1st Amendment.
“I look at the process of if they targeted me, which possibilities could or couldn’t be true,” Sanchez told PINAC News, explaining that he investigated the circumstances of his unusual ticket carefully before drawing a the conclusion leading to his formal compaint, “Based on the facts, I was left only with the conclusion that I was targeted.”
And that is an act of state censorship.
“They weren’t ticketing other cars on my street.”
And Sanchez was wise to point out that no other cars on his block were ticketed, because selective enforcement of the law is a clear violation of the Constitution’s 14th amendment’s equal protection clause, which specifically applies to the states and their conduct towards citizens, stating:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
In December, Motecuzoma Sanchez criticized the leadership at the Stockton Police Department over the violent crime rate that’s been rising, funding “cheesy government programs” and a bank robbery where Stockton police killed not only the robber, but also a hostage.
“They shot 600 rounds into a vehicle with a known hostage inside the vehicle and killed the hostage,” the activist told PINAC News about Stockton PD’s response to a bank robbery which became a high speed, shoot-em-up chase resulting in a dead hostage, “That’s basically a quarter of the police department, 32 officers, shooting at this one vehicle.”
“You can’t pin it on one cop, because they all did it.”
Sanchez’s masters degree is from University of Southern California, and his education is all about governance and how it affects the public, so he decided to do his own assessment of the shooting, and took some criticism from local police supporters.
“I do my research based on what I know from college. I don’t just throw it out there and hope it sticks,” he said.
After The Police Foundation did their review of the bank robbery hostage shooting, Sanchez said that it mirrored his assessment almost word-for-word.
The review found that officers actions were “excessive” and “unnecessary” as the LA times reported in 2015:
The report called the Stockton robbery a “sentinel” event that will change law enforcement forever, similar to the 1997 North Hollywood shooting, in which Los Angeles police officers found themselves initially outgunned by two bank robbers in body armor, and the 2013 Christopher Dorner manhunt, in which a former LAPD officer hunted local police before he died in a Big Bear gun battle. Both tested the nation’s public safety system and exposed its holes.
“They tried to rush the issue. Police are trained not to confront any bank robber inside of the building,”said Sanchez, “That’s police and bank protocol.”
When Sanchez brought up the hostage shooting, the officers began trolling him over Facebook.
That’s when he discovered at least three of them were cops because they were on his page sporting thin blue-line profile pictures.
The other thing that clued in Sanchez that they were cops, is that once he brought up the bank robbery, hostage shooting, they resorted to name calling, leading Sanchez to remark it was then, “I started thinking these guys were cops.”
Sanchez told Fox40 that he’s pursuing the matter over more than just the $300 ticket, it’s about what he sees as a misuse of power and police intimidation.
“The way they’re handling this investigation,” he says, “that shows me that this is something they take very serious.”
But even though Adams has been fired, Sanchez said it’s not over.
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Stockton Police Officer Pancho Freer who was named a lawsuit by a hostage after the “Heist Gone Bad” chase, where he fired some of the 600 bullets by police at robbers.
He responded to the news Adams had been fired over Facebook said,
“This is by no means finished. I never met Aaron Adams or had any interaction with him. This guy who’s on SPD was the original instigator, Pancho Freer (seen inset), plus another guy I’m giving a pass to. It was this guy who began attacking me for my position about SPD and city leadership with rising crime rates amidst millions in additional spending by tax payers. This “spat” in which he proceeded to call me expletives was most likely the result of the fact that he’s one of the cops being sued for firing some of the 600 bullets which killed innocent hostage Misty Holt Singh.”
Officer Freer, who Sanchez mentioned, became upset over Sanchez’s comments because was named in a lawsuit filed by the family of the slain hostage who became a victim of police when 32 officers fired 600 rounds into a Stockton bank robber’s car, which killed the innocent hostage.
Sanchez said Adams did not act alone and insinuated that the department still has to do some more house-cleaning before he’s satisfied.
He also expressed concern that this could happen again in the future.
“Now, thanks to law enforcement resources,” Sanchez lamented, “they know where I live.”
“And have an even bigger grudge.”
https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/04/09/california-cop-who-retaliated-against-activist-over-facebook-debate-fired/
